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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
quote:
Originally posted by illini fan:
Ok, ok... keep teaching them what you want, and the good ones would have been good anyway.
OK, I am confused. You say you don't teach "swing down to the ball", yet you keep defending it.
Do you teach this?
Sultan, read my posts.... I teach a swing that works... there you go. Call it what you want. I teach what the lower half, hips, and hands should do to lead the barrel to a consistent, balanced, high bat speep position. is that clear enough for you? I use terminology such as working hands downhill to contact, but not hands down "through" contact. There is a huge difference. The barrel doesn't work on the same plane as the hands, blah blah blah... here you go, I will copy and paste it again. But I can tell you one thing. If you see me teaching, it won't be teaching with words like "uppercut", "uphill", or "lift the ball". We will drive the baseball, carry the baseball, square it up, and do it to all fields.
Down to the ball is an idea. The barrell doesn't actually work that way. This idea helps kids, and hitters of all ages to think about being short to contact.
I question whether some guys are teaching with cues on what the hands do, or what the barrel does. They are different. Hands have to work downhill to get the barrell in the zone. Hands have to create extension after palm up palm down contact, which works the barrell through the zone, and then hands finish out of the zone which creates that "uppercut look" that you see with the barrel.
Esposito, yes, it is easy to teach, which helps most hitters understand a correct path and feel that path, again and again. As long as you are not "only" teaching "swing down ON the ball", but you also talk about proper plane, extension, and finish, then it all works for many hitters. I think many of us are arguing over what terminology makes a hitters hands work properly through the swing plane, versus what video shows us that the barrel actually does. Of course, game swings in slow motion video look like an uppercut at and beyond contact. These guys get great extension and finish high which helps them maintain balance.
When you control what you teach with a kids hands and lower half, they tend to control the barrel more consistently. When you start teaching hitters what the barrel should do, I think they lose connection with what the hands have to do to get the barrel there. Teaching a slight uppercut with the barrel, because that is what video shows us, leads me to believe that my hitters would immediately get long and start rolling over balls.
